Sarah Cecilia Cotter King

Sarah Cecilia Cotter King
Artists in Ohio, 1787-1900: A Biographical Dictionary

Sarah Cecilia Cotter was a Sculptor, born in Tipperary, Ireland 31 Oct. 1874. She came to America in 1887, and by 1900 she was living in Ironton, Lawrence County, Ohio, with an older brother, a Catholic priest.

She attended the Cincinnati Art Academy, and in 1900 was an associate member of the Society of Western Artists. She exhibited Christ, the Rejected at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, giving Ironton, Ohio, as her address. By 1909 she had married W.A. King and was living in Buffalo.

Lawrence County census 1900 (#1292); Am. Art. Ann. 3 (1900, 8 (1911); Petteys 1985; Falk 1985, as King; Exh. cats.

Donahoe’s Magazine: Volume 38, Jan. 1897, page 383

At the recent exhibition of the Art School of Cincinnati, one of the most promising pupils in the class modeling and sculpture was Miss Sarah Cecilia Cotter of Ironton, Ohio. She was one of the five who received “honorable mention,” the highest award given this year, and the other four had been in the class, for several years. There are more than 500 students in the school.

Miss Cotter exhibited eleven pieces of sculpture: A bust of Rebisso, her teacher: a bust portrait of herself: and a bust portrait of Miss Mussulman of Lexington. Ky.: a bas-relief of a bishop: a full-length seated portrait of Miss Noonan of Covington; a standing statue of a woman entitled “The Listening Look“; “Ulysses Drawing the Bow in Presence of Suitors of Penelope“; “Prostration“;  “Neglected Old Man“; a portrait bust of little Miss Madeline Lerodine; and a bust of Rev. James H. Cotter, her brother.

Such authority and critic as General Goshorr of Cincinnati, who, though an American citizen. was knighted by Queen Victoria for his judicious service to art as president of that division of the Centennial of 1876, pronounced Miss Cotter’s talent of an exceptional order, and encouraged her to devote herself to sculpture,  though she has already made quite a name in the classes of drawing and painting.

In commenting on her exhibit The Commercial Tribune says that “Miss Cotter’s talents demand more than passing note; and considering the high character of the work and extremely short time in which she had to produce it, is little less than marvelous. “Not alone have Miss Cotter’s gifts been shown upon the canvas and the block of marble. but in the gentler art of letters. The poetical surroundings of her cradle have so molded her mind that she has ‘lisped in numbers.”

Source: The Sacred Heart Review, Vol. 26, #17, 26 Oct. 1901

In the sculpture room of the Pan-American Exposition, Art Gallery is a much-admired bit of statuary, “Christ there Rejected,” which is the work of a young Catholic girl from Ironton, Ohio, Miss Sara Cecilia Cotter.